John Williams CONFIRMED for Episode VII

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ4jZr1w0AI

At least we know the music will be good.

emanswfan said:

if my mind serves me right, Lucas didn't give him enough time to really work on the scores for the prequels.  And even then, the movies were so bad he couldn't find inspiration probably.

I believe another big problem is that George wouldn't stop re-editing things after the score was recorded and locked in, so much of the music didn't appear in the film the way Williams intended.

Plus Williams scored the films in certain ways:

TPM was mostly Pastorale (Anakin is Free, and Arrival at Coruscant), with energetic action music (Take To Your Ships)

AOTC was more rythmic, with all the percussion (Chase thorugh Courscant, The Conveyor Belt, Dooku Vs. Obi-wan)

three quarters of ROTS was scored more like a political thriller, a la Nixon, with brooding low key music, the rest was references to the OT (A home for the Twins, Plans for the Twins).

Those don't sound like particularly bad ideas at all, and rather fitting.

True, but for people expecting to hear exactly what they heard in 1977, from John Williams in 1999-2005 for vastly inferior films...

fishmanlee said:

True, but for people expecting to hear exactly what they heard in 1977, from John Williams in 1999-2005 for vastly inferior films...

Right, gotcha.

Frankly, if you want to hear something like his OT work, go listen to Raiders.

timdiggerm said:

fishmanlee said:

True, but for people expecting to hear exactly what they heard in 1977, from John Williams in 1999-2005 for vastly inferior films...

Right, gotcha.

Frankly, if you want to hear something like his OT work, go listen to Raiders.

^Yes! Star Wars and Raiders are my favorite scores and both have a very similar feel. A magical, mysterious feel.

ray_afraid said:

timdiggerm said:

fishmanlee said:

True, but for people expecting to hear exactly what they heard in 1977, from John Williams in 1999-2005 for vastly inferior films...

Right, gotcha.

Frankly, if you want to hear something like his OT work, go listen to Raiders.

^Yes! Star Wars and Raiders are my favorite scores and both have a very similar feel. A magical, mysterious feel.

I wonder if this means we should check out his Lincoln, War Horse, and The Adventures of Tin Tin soundtracks to get an idea of where he might be in a few years?

His work on the first Harry Potter films was quite good in my opinion. He managed to make some very memorable motifs. The great thing about bringing back the Star Wars characters like Luke, Han, Leia, and Lando, he can bring back their motifs.

Each character had their own, it's easy to work around a melody you've already made.

Joel McNeely made a very good soundtrack for Shadows Of The Empire. It used the familiar motifs, but it veered of in it's own direction, while remaining William's esque. I'm shocked Fan Editors don't use that soundtrack for prequel edits.

They just need to tell John Williams to emulate Holst, Mahler, and Stravinsky. We'll get an amazing soundtrack. That's essentially the way the 77 soundtrack was made.

Eh, Superman is closer to Star Wars than Raiders is, for example "Chasing Crooks" the strings sound alot like the writing in "Tie Fighter Attack"/"The Battle of Yavin".

As a writer of film scores Williams is overrated IMO. Brilliant, but overated. Ennio Morricone and Bernard Hermann are the greatest ever composers of film scores. Every score they did featured a whole new soundscape of different instruments and emotional depths.

The linking scores in Williams work are usually a rehash of everything he's done before. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park are so similar.

But what Williams does best is themes, the main themes he creates are iconic from Jaws, to Raiders, Harry Potter, Superman, Jurassic Park, to even Duel Of The Fates. Ask anybody and I bet they could hum at least 4 or 5 straight off. You can't say that about any other composer. Even Beethoven or Mozart.

As long as he gets the time to write a few truelly great themes, all will be well. A war theme, a love theme, an evil theme, an action theme and a sad theme etc and we're cooking. It wouldn't be Star Wars without John Williams.

Ryan McAvoy said:

As a writer of film scores Williams is overrated IMO. Brilliant, but overated. Ennio Morricone and Bernard Hermann are the greatest ever composers of film scores. Every score they did featured a whole new soundscape of different instruments and emotional depths.

That is your opinion.

imperialscum said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

As a writer of film scores Williams is overrated IMO. Brilliant, but overated. Ennio Morricone and Bernard Hermann are the greatest ever composers of film scores. Every score they did featured a whole new soundscape of different instruments and emotional depths.

That is your opinion.

Yes, which is why he said "IMO", which stands for "In My Opinion". He then explained the reasons behind his opinion. All in all, an exemplary post for online discussion.

Ryan McAvoy said:

As a writer of film scores Williams is overrated IMO. Brilliant, but overated. Ennio Morricone and Bernard Hermann are the greatest ever composers of film scores. Every score they did featured a whole new soundscape of different instruments and emotional depths.

The linking scores in Williams work are usually a rehash of everything he's done before. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park are so similar.

None of his scores are truly the same though.

Jurassic Park uses much more synth than Star Wars.

Harry Potter uses much more Celeste than Indiana Jones (except KOTCS)

With each Indy score, the style difference is huge, Raiders is mostly minor keyed, Temple is frenetic, Crusade is laid back, humorous, and emotional, KOTCS has more Sci-fi.

Star Wars is more Romantic than the others.

and plenty of Williams scores had "new" soundscapes

I just listened to The Last Crusade soundtrack again today, and man, several parts sounded like they were right out of Empire.

I agree that Williams is best with themes. The Holy Grail theme is just so great, woven into the rest of the music, it gives the trilogy the perfect sendoff.

Great news.  Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Ben Burtt announcement.

Bester said:

Great news.  Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Ben Burtt announcement.

What, you don't want Matt Wood????

NeverarGreat said:

I just listened to The Last Crusade soundtrack again today, and man, several parts sounded like they were right out of Empire.

I agree that Williams is best with themes. The Holy Grail theme is just so great, woven into the rest of the music, it gives the trilogy the perfect sendoff.

Thats what I was getting at. e.g. the 'Circus Train chase' sounds a hell of alot like some of the Endor/Ewok music from ROTJ. But then the main 'Holy Grail' theme is so beautiful I wanna cry tears of joy.

Bester said:

Great news.  Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Ben Burtt announcement.

As long as Burtt isn't allowed near an editing suite. Sound YES PLEASE!, visuals no thanks.

So?

Alot of Goldsmith scores sound the same, almost every composer has this "issue"

I could argue that John Barry destroys everybody, but in the end I love all above mentioned composers.

Barry was too repetitive for me, one cue is just 30 seconds of the same thing looped for 2:00 minutes.